


Absolution

by nosmokingpistol



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Heavy Angst, Other, Regeneration (Doctor Who), Tenth Doctor's Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28151535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosmokingpistol/pseuds/nosmokingpistol
Summary: The Tenth Doctor is regenerating, and his TARDIS is there to comfort him in his last moments.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Absolution

**And so it begins...**

He was horrified. He was mesmerized. The Doctor raised first one hand, then the other, and watched them begin to disassemble. Flesh dissolving into molecules, molecules ripped into atoms. Atoms shredded into the dust of the ages. Building blocks for the new man. It had happened before of course. It would happen again. But it had never happened to _him_. The Tenth Doctor was dying, and it burned like the fire of a thousand suns. It was one of the strange yet limitless cruelties of the Universe that his brain would be the last to lose it’s integrity. The better to witness his own passing.

He felt his feet burning. His legs and arms became the ghosts of limbs. He would never run again. He would never again wrap his arms around a beloved human and feel their single heart beat next to his. His internal organs, already diseased by the radiation sickness that was killing him, failed quickly. He began to hyperventilate as his brain tried desperately to oxygenate a body that could no longer metabolise it. His lungs turned to ash. As the artron energy overwhelmed him he went rigid, frozen in place. Frozen in Time. The Tenth Doctor was dying.

*********

_He was somewhere and nowhere. No light, no dark. No sound. No substance. No pain. He had no eyes to see and yet he knew that he was in a nothingness, a place without up or down, past or future. Only thought and emotion as the last vestiges of his magnificent brain began to slowly disintegrate. Fear. Terror. The Void. The Howling. If he’d had a mouth he would have screamed. If he’d had a mouth he would have enumerated his crimes, the sins that justified his condemnation to Hell. His Hell. Alone for all eternity._

_He was floating. No, not floating—he was cradled. The sensation of being enfolded. Warmth. Infinite love. He was loved. If he’d had ears he would have heard, and yet he knew there was a voice, a thousand voices blended into an ancient choir emanating from one source. Sexless. Ageless. Timeless. “Where am I?”_

“You are not in Hell, Doctor. You are with me and I with you. I was with you when you first came into being. I am with you at your death. I will be with you until the end of your lives, Time Lord. Then you will return to me, and you shall be exalted.”

_Not Hell, then. Surely not Hell. If he’d had eyes he would have wept. “Who are you?”_

“I Am.”

“ _Are you…are you God? Is this Heaven?” He wouldn’t believe. Couldn’t. That being did not exist. And yet he’d searched, and wondered, for he had met the Beast. He had travelled to see the birth of the Christ. Yin and Yang. God and Devil. But what did it matter? The doors of any Heaven, real or imagined, would certainly be closed to him._

“I Am, and you are with me, for a time. I hold your soul until the Doctor lives again. Rest. Be at peace.”

_The Doctor’s brain faltered, now. He tried to analyze, find rational science, looked for explanations. Much of his vast brain had now turned to dust. He was left with emotion, and the most rudimentary intellect. He could not argue, so in the end he believed. If he’d had legs he would have fallen to his knees. “I did things…things that went wrong. Mars. I think…on Mars something happened. I’ve taken lives. My planet…Pompeii. And I’ve betrayed…I betrayed…I can’t… can’t think.” A tide of love washed over him again, a tender mercy even as he felt himself fade into a haze of neurons._

“You are my warrior, my beloved, my Judas. How many times have you saved my creation? How many times have you suffered so others might live? Well done, good and faithful servant. When you return to me for the last time you will sit at my side. You will know the answer to all mysteries, and I will exalt you. You will have your reward, here, with me.”

_Forgiveness, given and taken. He was forgiven. He forgave himself. He had loved. He was loved. In the end, as he died, the Tenth Doctor felt only love._

The Tardis felt her Doctor’s death, and in that final moment heard the scream of rebirth as the Eleventh Doctor was born. She was with him as he first came into being. She would be with him at his death, as she had been so many times. And in the end, she would do for him what she had done for all of her Doctors. She would give him the greatest of gifts. Peace, in death. Forgiveness. Hope for eternity. His reward. It was right and just that she do so. He was her Time Lord. And She was his God.


End file.
